


Storm

by Jessa



Series: Multi-chapter WIPS [4]
Category: ReyRose - Fandom, Reylo - Fandom, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, finnlo - Fandom, finnreylo - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety, Apprentice!Finn, Apprentice!Kylo/Ben, Ben Solo Lives, Dark!Rey, Emotional Eating, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Finn and Ben kill Dark!Rey, Fluff and Angst, Force Ghost Rey, Force-Sensitive Finn, HEA, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Ben Solo, Jedi Finn (Star Wars), Jedi Rey (Star Wars), M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, NSFW, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redeemed!Rey in the end, References to Depression, Rey is not a Palpatine in this story, TRoS Spoilers, kylo ren and ben solo are personas of the same person, major character death (Dark!Rey), major character death (Leia Organa), mild references to gore (blood), moderate descriptions of violence, tags will change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2020-12-28 07:21:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 17,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21132845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/pseuds/Jessa
Summary: **TROS SPOILERS FOLLOW**This is a TROS-era, fix-it-style, canon-divergent story.The story begins with Finn and redeemed Kylo Ren/Ben Solo killing Dark!Rey with the Sith dagger found on Pasaana. Kylo/Ben and Finn - who don’t know each other very well yet, although they are aware of each other and have been since before Finn defected from the First Order and joined the Resistance - follow a ritual that Rey has studied in the Jedi texts; she foresaw her path to the Darkness and a way to return herself to the Light.The body of this story tells of how Force-ghost Mistress/Master!Rey seeks revenge on Emperor Palpatine, who has manipulated her as he manipulated Kylo/Ben, and ultimately defeats him. And of how, through her teaching of two apprentices along the way - Kylo/Ben, who’s training is still incomplete, and Finn, who’s training is yet to begin - her friends are instrumental in that journey; in the end the trio defeat the Emperor, restore peace to the galaxy and bring balance back to the Force.No surprises! It's HEA!





	1. Gone

**Author's Note:**

> In this story Ben Solo lives, Finn is Force-sensitive and Rey is not a Palpatine. 
> 
> This work is tagged NSFW but I will mark the chapters and the ships so you can avoid if needed because smut is not in every chapter and nor is every ship. 
> 
> The MCD in this story is marked at the start of those chapters. 
> 
> At no point does Ben Solo die in this story although Kylo Ren’s death is referred to and there is a journey throughout the story around those ideas. Feel free to ask questions if you’re not sure about whether you want to read or not based on that; happy to clear that up just don't want to spoil too much! But this story is written based on the idea that Kylo Ren and Ben Solo are personas of the same person, and are inextricably intertwined. So the idea that Kylo dies in this story is not actually possible. So just trust me on this one, I’m looking after them both. It’s a fix-it, after all! <3
> 
> This is a multi-ship work. No apologies. Please don't interact if you don't like that. There are lots of mono-ship fics to read if you'd prefer and that's fine. <3
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story! I like to write short chapters (500-1000 words) so the reads are short and the updates frequent.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn and Ben and Rey are on Kef Bir, the ocean moon of Endor.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: MCD (Dark!Rey).

Finn can’t tell anymore. He can’t tell anymore about it, he’s said so many words to the storm. But the storm hasn’t said any back. For many, many minutes now. So Finn can’t tell anymore if the storm’s understood him or not, he doubts it has. It’s just a storm after all, and those don’t answer back. Even when they’re still raging. As hard and as fierce and as loud and as Dark as she just has.

“Just leave me alone.”

Finn can’t tell anymore if he’s really hearing that or not. His own voice saying those words. Can’t tell anymore if he’s been heard, either, by the only other thing still here, that could hear him now she’s gone. He knows that, they both do, both he and Ben; they both know she’s gone. Because both of them did it, together. They did it together for her. Finished it.

“No.”

Every muscle in Finn’s body aches. Every limb feels torn, in at least three places, and he wonders how much time he himself has left as he studies his hands. Smeared not just with the grime an ocean leaves on a starship inside it for decades - generations - but also with blood shed in a futile effort to save a thing he knew, as soon as it turned, could never come back. As futile, Finn still thinks, as yelling out his lungs at its storm. 

Finn kneels again to where she still lies, as still as the planet is silent. Now that her storm is over. He slides his palms face-up beneath her, and lifts her up and holds her to his breast once more. And another storm begins. Finn’s been holding on to this one too. But as strong as he is he just can’t seem to hold the two at once. 

His tears fall down. And onto the back of his neck - as he holds Rey’s body - Ben’s tears fall down too. Tears for the woman who saved them - changed them - but who they couldn’t save. Who they couldn’t change, not at the finish. Tears for the storm that’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	2. Bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Finn are still on Kef Bir, grieving together over Rey's body.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mild gore and references to Rey's recent death.

Ben can’t feel his knees anymore, knelt on the ruin in the last pour of rain and beneath the countless wash of ocean. Rey’s body is still in Finn’s arms but the crimson the storm’s been spreading is thinning; where once it was deep and thick and dark, it’s closer now to shades of the saccharine-flavored childhood memories he has of Nar Shaddaa. Ben still re-lives those moments too, sometimes. 

He blinks fresh tears away. Too many memories. The physical world calls him back. The shikkar still impales her but the handle's still intact; Rey’s ghost will not be gone. Ben knows it's true. A tiny mercy in this mirthless pit of madness. Small like the flash of her he caught before the dagger took her Darkness. One final glimpse of his Rey. 

And that buoys him - hope fills him - as he kneels there, bracing Finn. Who doesn't feel as much yet, the range. Still collapsing in only anger and hurt. Ben feels those things as well.

“Ours,” he whispers, into the soaked hair at the base of Finn's skull. “Our Rey… you knew her too...”

He feels it again. The call to the Light. It’s the second time today, the first occurring only hours before in the red-earthed desert, when he was still _ Kylo_. And although it was shadowed, then, by the Darkness rising in Rey, he had not overlooked the timing. The first moment he glimpsed this man again since Crait. Set eyes on who Kylo had called so many names before, though none of them audible or in person. Only ever in memories. Re-lived memories.

Still, even in those, he’d never used the same name Rey had. Never that single one. Maybe now though, that she’s not here to call him by that name herself. And Kylo’s not here either, to call him by any of the others.

“Finn?” Ben tries for the first time, voice breaking. “You... we... have to let her go now-”

“You have to _bring her_ _ back_.”

Ben hears the words but the Light calls again, and with the same instinct - _feeling_ \- that rose in him on Starkiller Base, Ben listens. But not because its sound is loud. In fact, it’s so quiet. Delicate, nuanced and as beautiful as music uncomposed. It captures Ben completely then, and just like he tried at Tuanul - and earlier today on Pasaana - through a thing he's always sensed was there, Ben reaches out. To where he hears Light call from. He always has sought Light. And Ben tries again to make it answer. He’s always done that too.

_ I can’t_, he thinks to Finn through a new bond. Theirs. _ You know that. I told you before, it doesn't w-_

Suddenly he’s sprawled on his back. His elbows knocking against the brittle exterior of the ship. Hands catching on shards of steel as he clamors for purchase but his fingers find naught. Only the algae of the Death Star’s remains. The ocean's mark of time; of how many batterings it's given this wreck since the end of the Battle for Endor.

But Ben doesn't give up or in. He keeps trying again until he does grip something and steadies himself. And then he starts to rise, up off the surface, and all the while sensing the fear in the man who just felled him to it in shock.

Finn is facing him, but he isn't advancing on Ben. He's just standing there, mutely. Breathing hard, eyes wide, mouth wider, teeth bared. Dripping in rain and sea and sweat. And his own blood as well as the traces of Rey’s; her body still lies just beyond where the two men stand opposed now.

Ben starts to move once more towards Finn. Because that’s where the Light calls him to. That’s where Ben can feel it flaring. Raw with emotion and bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	3. They’re Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still on Kef Bir, Finn realises the extent of his injuries.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mild gore and references to Rey's recent death.

Finn lets Ben approach because he’s cold, and something about this approach is making the rain seem to arc away from where they are, out here in the elemental chill. Making the water seem to do the same thing, even though they’re both still wet and the water is still there, drenching them; it’s not doing that at all - arcing away - and the cold is still there too. None of that environmental stuff is gone as Rey is. Finn’s just not feeling it all like that, he’s feeling something else. He’s feeling more.

He inhales a sharp breath. He’s still bleeding. In the scuffle with Rey - as Finn and Ben struggled to perform an act which Rey and Ben had both claimed was the only way to fix this mess, and return her to the Light; there is apparently nothing else inside Jedi tomes on a subject so specific to Sith lore - he had suspected it. And he knows now that he is indeed very badly wounded.

Ben stops. They’re almost as close as they were before, as Rey lay dying. And Finn is still breathless, but not just because of his injury; in his mind, he can’t catch up. He’s still unsure of what he just heard; still confused by the polarising things he can suddenly feel so keenly. Things that are, perhaps, elemental after all. Are these his surroundings, these feelings? He’s having trouble telling where he ends and-

“You’re bleeding out,” Ben interrupts, and he really is interrupting, he’s saying it aloud; Finn doesn’t think he’s doing whatever he just did inside Finn’s head. Finn’s sure he can hear the words this time; Ben’s words are real sounds, with real vibrations. Ben’s words are spoken: “You’re dying... Finn.”

Hair is still plastered across the man’s newly unscarred face - obscuring most of it - but through that mask Finn can still see that his big dark eyes are soft. Finn has a feeling Ben’s telling him the truth. The same feeling he had on Pasaana, after Rey turned, and just before he agreed to travel here with Ben; together they followed Rey here from the desert.

Finn inhales another breath and it’s just as sharp as the one before, and whatever energy has been animating him - so much so that he could shrug off someone as large as Ben with so much strength - has all but gone. Suddenly Finn feels tremendously heavy. Not just from the sadness of losing Rey but physically his own weight is too much to bear, and he crumples. But on the way down he’s caught. 

And now it’s not cold at all. Air fills Finn’s lungs, his breaths are no longer sharp. His body feels light, as it should, and then it feels strong, and he finds that he can stand again on his own. And he no longer hurts. He’s no longer injured. And his back feels different. Looser. Stronger. 

Finn looks at Ben but his eyes are downcast. Finn watches as Ben dips his head and crouches to Rey’s body. He slides the small blade from inside her. Then he draws back his arm and he heaves the dagger far away into the ocean. And it disappears without a detectable sound as Rey’s body disappears too. As though neither ever even existed.

“We have to go.”

Finn gapes at the place from where she’s just faded. All that’s left are her clothes. Tears overwhelm him again. Finn is as cold as before. But now he is also frozen. He can’t leave her. His Rey. But Ben is turning away from the scene, turning his back on Finn and Rey’s clothes and marching back towards his ship. And his movements are not light like they were before at the end of their time on Pasaana, or during the start of their time here on Kef Bir. Ben’s movements now are heavy and stilted and ordered again. Movements that Finn thinks of as Kylo’s.

“They’re already on their way,” Finn hears him call across his shoulder, as Ben continues to walk away in that same stiffened gait. As though he carries the burdens of whole systems over his shoulders, because he does. “I know you feel it too, Finn... they’re coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	4. Whisper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn and Ben prepare to leave Kef Bir.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: References to Rey's death.

“Who’s coming?” Finn asks, still fixed to the spot, but Ben doesn’t stop. “And... and feel _what,_ Ren?”

The man just keeps on marching away until the back of him recedes into mist that’s rising off the surface of the ocean; it’s warmer in there by now than out here in the air, Finn imagines. He thinks again of the knife Ben’s just flung inside it. And then Finn starts to sweat. 

He’s by himself out here now, there’s nobody else in sight. Rey has disappeared - there’s not a body - and now so has Ben; the fog has consumed him. Finn feels alone. His stomach churns and bile rises up the back of his throat and burns. Panic grips his guts but it’s not the same kind he felt minutes ago, as Rey lay dying. It’s not even what he felt as he watched her turn to Dark in the desert.

This is a panic that Finn hasn’t felt since he left Rey on Ajan Kloss. When he, Rose, Poe, and Chewie made the run for intelligence, at Leia’s behest from Base. This _ isn’t _ panic. It’s not even fear; this is Finn’s terror of being left lonely. He’s being abandoned again.

“Damn it, Ren, wait up!”

This is the something that pulled him to Rey when he woke up in a bacta suit on the Raddus. And earlier, when they first met on Jakku. But it’s pulling him away from the site of her death, and her remaining clothes, straight into the fog ahead. He knows where he’s going - back to Ben’s ship - but he can’t see the pathway. He’s stumbling blind. Least now, though, he’s moving.

“I said, _wait _!”

Finn runs to catch up to Ben, his boots losing traction at times on the slippery surface of the Death Star as he goes, but he stays on his feet as he moves through the thick vapour and continued spray of the ocean’s tumult. Until shadows appear and the great elliptical form of the TIE Whisper’s cockpit emerges from the low cloud. And Ben is there waiting, and Finn breathes again for a cycle. A slow breath. The calmest one he’s had since Ben disappeared.

“Hold them,” he’s saying now to Finn.

Finn stares at the hilts of two lightsabers - one that makes Finn’s stomach turn again, and the other one is Rey’s. The one he’s held before, but not for a while. 

“No,” Finn says. He swallows. “Answer me first… I asked you a question… if you want me to do something for you, well... then you need to answer my question first, and then I might re-”

“Please?”

Ben proffers the dormant sabers again. Their eyes meet briefly. Finn huffs and with reluctance takes them both in his hands as Ben opens the ship and climbs inside. Finn - still following instinct - does the same. As before, Ben settles himself in on the pilot’s side of the cabin, and Finn returns to the co-pilot seat as he listens to the sounds of Ben switching dials and pushing buttons. He turns the weapons over in his hands then takes a nervous glance across the ship.

"So... where are we going? Gonna at least tell me that much, huh?"

Still punching buttons, Ben stays silent. Finn starts to blink back tears. He has no idea what they’re for. He swallows; his throat feels thick like he’s just drunk unset concrete. He can’t speak but he needs to say something. 

_ Ren? _

"Stop calling me that."

"Where are we going?" Finn asks again, finding his voice this time, although it sounds like somebody else’s. His throat is still tight with emotion. "Ben?"

Ben’s hands pause. His fingers hover over the dash for a moment. He turns his head a little and his eyes creep across to Finn. To the sabers he’s still turning over as though they contain the answer. His eyes rise to Finn’s and their sightlines connect, as briefly as they did when they were still outside. And he holds Finn’s gaze for just long enough to give the answer.

“Mustafar,” Ben says. 

And then his hands begin to move again and his gaze pulls away, and he powers up the thrusters on the Whisper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	5. Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile...
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

Rey had heard lots of different kinds of stories. From other nobodies growing up on Jakku she’d heard myths about people who were somebodies. After meeting Finn she’d heard his accounts too, of heroes he’d been told about. And when they’d travel on long hauls she’d heard Chewie tell Kashyyykian legends, and Poe tell jokes. Those had protagonists too.

She supposes that jokes are kind of like stories. Some of Poe’s jokes were very long-winded like very long stories but none of the jokes - or the legends, accounts, or even the myths - were anything like the kinds of stories Rose had told to Rey. She’d called them _ fairy-tales_.

Sometimes the fairy-tales were literally about fairies. Sometimes they were about other creatures Rey had likewise never heard of, in the myths or the jokes or the accounts: mermaids, dragons, griffins, cecaelia. Rose used to tell Rey really good tales about cecaelia; those ones used to make Rey blush and think a lot about Ben.

She blinks at the lights again. They, too, remind her of Ben.

But always in Rose’s tales there were also real people, who Rose said looked just like she and Rey and Ben, and Finn and Poe. But there was one tale Rose used to tell her only at night, when Rey really couldn’t sleep. When all she could do, it seemed, was cry over Ben. Over how hurt his Darkness had left her feeling, inside the room they’d burned to the ground together.

In that tale there was a ghost. Or, at first, that’s what Rey thought the character seemed most like; she had heard a lot about ghosts. But Rose never called it by that name in the story. Rose always called it an _ angel_. And Rey wonders if these lights that she can see now are what Rose said lived inside angels, and gave people light.

Rey reaches out, just like she used to: not with her body, just feelings. These aren’t lights at all.

Cross-legged on the floor of the nicest part of the jungle. Rey’s head in her lap. Rose stroking her hair. Sleepy eyes closing.

_ That’s all you are now, _ Rey thinks_. My memory. _

_ But you, Rey, are still the angel. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	6. Prepare for Entry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Finn travel to the Mustafar system.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: References to Kylo/Ben’s death. Casual references to killing, death and dying. Explicit language. Emotional eating.

“Have you finished?” Ben doesn’t know many cusswords in Basic but Finn is changing that very quickly.

“Shit, no!” he blasts at Ben again from across the cockpit. “What do you mean _ Mustafar _? Why in the free-wheeling fuck would we go there? Rey didn’t say to go there! We should be going to Ajara, that’s-”

“Well, when you’ve finished,” Ben sighs, “there’s a thing of flatcakes down there by your boots... can you pass it, please?” 

“No! Now is not the time to eat flatcakes! Now is the time to tell the Resistance what happened. And tell your mother what happened. And she’s also gonna need to know what happened to you-”

Ben turns to Finn and points a sharp finger. “Just so we’re clear... don’t you ever mention my mother to me again or I will not just take you to Mustafar, I will leave you there as well. You don’t know the half of it so keep your mouth shut, unless you’re invited to un-shut it. Understood?”

“Tell me why we’re going to a Sith planet.”

“It’s not a _ Sith planet_ alright? It’s just a kriffing planet.”

“Mustafar is a Sith planet and no amount of you defending it will change my mind on that, so save your breath.”

Ben rolls his eyes. They’ve entered lightspeed and all that’s really left to do now - apart from surviving this trip without killing each other first - is to wait for the program to end, and then they’ll prepare for atmospheric entry. Ben reaches down the side of Finn's seat and fumbles around between his boots for the half-empty package of junk breakfast food.

“Didn’t know Sith ate flatcakes,” Finn snipes, not moving his boots.

“I’m not a Sith,” Ben grunts, pushing Finn’s right boot out of the way.

“Former Sith then.”

Ben maneuvers the box back up past the rest of Finn’s still-defiant leg. He takes two flatcakes out, folds them over together as one and shoves them whole into his mouth. Then he offers the rest to Finn. To Ben’s surprise, he takes it. 

He must be starved too; he’s certainly as edgy. Ben studies Finn while he chews; his dark eyes are narrowed, his heavy brows drawn. For all the ways he looks now like a man who doesn’t trust him, Ben can feel a thing in him quite different.

_Knights aren’t Sith, _ Ben thinks through the bond, testing it again. _Okay?_

Finn’s mouth is still full of stodgy carbs so he can’t say anything back. But if looks could kill Ben suspects that this would be the second time today he's died. He leans back in his seat and starts to fiddle with the hole in his shirt. Several awkward minutes pass silently between them as the ship continues to skim the edge of the Mid Rim while Finn devours the rest of the food. 

“So,” he probes, once all the flatcakes are gone, “if you’re not a Sith… well, what are you then? Good guy now? Huh? Good guy Solo? Jedi Knight Solo? Master B-”

“I know what you are,” Ben says quietly.

“Is that a dig?”

“No… I was just saying.”

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” Finn says.

Ben glances at Finn, slumped in his chair; he senses Finn wishes he was anywhere but here. Ben goes back to playing with the hole in his shirt but as much as he tries to make it, the hole won’t fray; his saber’s edge made sure of that. 

“I do know some things about you, Finn… but sure… keep telling yourself I don't… and that’s not the right thing to do by the way… just saying that too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What you’re thinking,” Ben says. 

“And what's that?”

He’s still eyeing the hole but the rest of Ben's senses are with Finn. “Don’t play games... why wouldn’t they believe us?”

“They might believe me. They wouldn’t believe you. No one would believe you’ve turned… and Rey’s not here to defend you anymore.”

“The truth isn’t something you should fear, Finn… there are plenty of things to be feared but the truth is not one of them. Didn't anybody ever teach you that?”

“You know what?” Finn says. Ben glances across the cockpit again. “Unless it’s the answer to why we are going to a volcanic hell-hole, I do not wanna hear your voice again until we get to it. Understood?”

Ben swallows. _There’s something we need there. Did she tell you that part?_

“Yes.”

_No... but you know it already... you’re sitting over there, after all… you say you don’t know it but I know you do... I feel it in you... why don't you trust what's in you?_

“She told me to trust you."

Ben feels his face grow warm. It’s not just from the sugar of the flatcakes, which he hardly ever eats. _Do you know what a holocron is?_

The tension in Finn’s jaw releases. The faintest crease still teases his brow but his eyes have softened markedly. “No.”

_Datacron? Know those?_

“Yeah.”

_Holocrons are like those._

“Okay... so what?”

Warning tones sound from the dash. Ben’s eyes shift to the console first and then to the viewport, but once again the rest of his senses stay with Finn. _Want her back? _

_ Yeah._

_So do I… still remember what I showed you before?_

_Yeah._

_Keep your eyes on the heat... okay?_

_Doin' it... _

_Prepare for entry..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	7. Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn and Ben arrive on the surface of Mustafar.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

As the Whisper descends Finn struggles to spy solid land; he doubts even something as modified as this ship could survive for long if Ben attempted to berth them on the surface of magma. Somehow though Ben guides them safely to something stable and not on fire. He docks the ship.

The sabers Ben insisted Finn take when they were back in the Endor system have been in his lap ever since. Now they’re on Mustafar though, and Ben’s flicking dials again to power down the craft, Finn toys with their hilts nervously. Memories of fire and snow swim before his vision. Sounds ghost his ears.

“One each,” Ben’s saying, and through the echoes, something clacks - Ben’s harness is unbuckling - and shortly his hand is reaching out to Finn for his saber, as expectant as it was on Kef Bir. 

Finn passes the weapon to Ben. The one with the wires. He has to push it into Ben’s hand though because he’s busy with something down beneath his own boots now. Looks to Finn like clothing, dark and supple. And the next thing Finn knows the hull of the interceptor is open and Ben has left the ship. 

Finn’s clothes dry quickly. The back of his throat goes drier than bone. He locks his jaw to save his mouth from the ash that’s thick in the air. It’s all he can taste and smell, so he shrugs off his vest and covers his face; too hot to wear out here anyway.

Ben’s forging on ahead of Finn. Something is fashioned around his head too. And he’s tired. Finn can see it. A tall, broad dark silhouette moving heavily through an angry haze, flecked by the burnt debris that falls like snow and covers the ground in a mottled morbid blanket. Nothing moves easily here. 

Once it looked like something tried to grow. Burnt stubs of things that look like they were once irontrees are the closest things to signs of life apart from him and Ben. Organic things that burn. Yet inside, the planet seems livid; its own stubborn energy forging and reforging a surface that doesn’t want them.

Beyond the fringes of charcoaled earth are the flaming lakes of lava Finn saw on entry; he’s heard terrible tales about those. Rock so hot its molten. Their burns are famously rumoured and responsible for nightmarish things of legend older soldiers used to taunt him with when he was still a child.

The longer they walk out here, the more Ben stumbles. Finn’s not sure of how much further to go. He’d ask but half the time he’s losing sight of Ben. It’s as though they’re on the ocean moon again and he is sliding blind over sodden debris. But the same thing guides him when he’s lost. The pull towards Ben.

Everything else here seems to fight his presence. The heat, the air, the smell. The weight of remorse. The sense of dislocation, like nothing could be plotted. When they landed, the world seemed to have given up its fight to chart itself. Finn’s only instinct was and still is to follow Ben.

He brings the hand not holding Rey’s old weapon to his face, and wipes the heavy layer of sweat coating his exposed brow. When he next looks ahead Ben has stopped. Finn squints through the dry, dusty air. There is movement beyond where he’s halted. Figures emerge from behind the distant trees.

Ben ignites his saber and Finn’s stomach drops.

“What are you doing?” he hisses, catching up to the spot, as the hooded figures make their way closer. “Are they even armed? I can’t see-”

“It’s just a precaution,” Ben mumbles through the cowl that covers most of his face. “I don’t want trouble.”

“You _ don’t _ want trouble?” Finn motions to the flaming edges of Ben’s saber, a sure sign of trouble if he ever saw one. “You do realise what that thing signifies, right?”

“Please stop talking.”

“Put your weapon away,” Finn appeals. 

_Look closer._

Finn squints. “Clubs...? Ben... they wouldn’t even stand a _half_ a chance.” Finn motions again to the saber, and then he drops his voice right down to a whisper. “Even _ without _ that thing… you don’t even _ need _ a weapon… I’ve seen what you can do… with the _ Force.._.”

Ben turns his head by just enough to eye him. Finn holds his nerve. The only sounds that pass between them are the hum of the blade and the white noise of the low growl the planet’s climatic routines make. The figures are still so far away they don’t make noise as they continue their approach.

“Talk to them,” Ben says.

“Huh?”

“We need passage… do it… ask them for passage.”

“Why the hell can’t you?”

Suddenly the saber quits and Ben drops down to his knees, head bowed. And when he speaks next his voice is half the volume it was before. Finn can feel him fading.

_ Ask for passage. _

Finn crouches to Ben. “What’s wrong with you?”

_ I don’t know… Finn, please… otherwise we won’t get there… they’re guardians… defenders… they stand in our way but I don’t have the strength to get by them… _

Finn doesn’t know why he does what he does next. It doesn’t make much sense. But it doesn’t make sense that Rey should be dead and that he and Ben should be here, on a planet he has always thought of as bad, no matter how many times the First Order used to explain it away as historically important, or how many times Ben tries to say it's not a thing steeped in Sith lore. Yet Rey is gone and here they are. 

And aside from trusting Ben - not just because Rey told him to but because he is rapidly running out of reasons not to start to do it just because he wants to - all Finn feels the urge to do now is to reach down for Ben's hand, which has released his saber and is spread on the ashed ground, holding him up. Supporting his weight.

Finn closes his left hand around the outside of Ben’s. The planet’s air is already roasting but between their skin passes a heat that’s different. And as quickly as he does it Finn stops. He stands. And as he senses Ben stand too, behind him, the next urge Finn feels is to lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	8. Finn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inside Fortress Vader, Ben is guided to the holocron.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

The back of Finn might as well be the only thing here. It’s almost all Ben has the energy left to focus on; a mission brown shirt soaked in sweat. From the crests of the shoulders beneath it, all the way down to the band of the riding trousers capturing its ends; the fabric hangs wet even though it’s so hot here and hard to imagine that somewhere in the galaxy water still exists at all. But it must. It’s in Ben’s eyes again.

_ Hey, kid. _

Ben doesn’t have enough energy left this time to attend to the thoughts of his dad, that he’s having so soon after the first time, in the desert, just before he threw away his mask. They don’t surprise him, these thoughts. He wonders if they are in fact more than just thoughts now. If what he knows he usually sees when he’s exhausted - who - has sent him back instead. For all Ben’s learned of the Force there are still so many things about it that he doesn’t understand. His training’s still unfinished. 

Another voice is playing a song inside Ben’s head now too. So many voices. This one he doesn’t know but it makes him think of his mother. And now the deep sounds of Finn’s voice break through it all: the voices and the exhaustion. Asking for direction. Ben doesn’t answer it though. Apart from just to keep on moving, past the point where Finn has stopped to wonder where to next. 

The inside of the cave, beneath the former Fortress Vader, is as Light as Ben knew it would be. He’s never feared his visions of this place as Dark. He’s only ever trusted that this kind of Darkness was really just a blanket, never a bind. It never sheltered him when he was a child, or a youth, or even a man. But it always promised it could. And Ben still believes it can. 

He has seen this place so many times before; he knows where to go. But even so he’s still following something. The same call he always has when he’s felt lost. Another deep voice. As injured and tortured on the inside as Ben. His grandfather leads him across the sanctum until it leaves him again. He never does stay long. But he never does fail Ben.

Finn is saying something else now to Ben but all he can hear is the call of what’s inside the coffer, which he stands in front of now. He reaches out and places the palm of his right hand against the cold stone. It seems to pulse beneath his fingers, as though it’s a creature that’s been left alone too long, touched again after years left feeling as though it never would be. Grateful.

The lid shifts away. Ben doesn’t need to force it. He was born to do this, and as the plane moves light spills from beneath its edges and illuminates his torso. Highlights the hole in his shirt. 

The holocron inside it hums. A rhythm just for Ben. He reaches out for one more time and closes his fist around the small cube. He lifts it out and the coffer reseals and before he loses consciousness the last thing Ben sees mirrors the first: Finn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.
> 
> So this fic is really just smashing together the parts in TROS I like (or don't completely hate) with my headcanons. I am not somebody who is completely bound by canon and I just try to use enough to make things seem plausible. So in canon apparently Fortress Vader doesn't exist anymore but beneath where it used to be there is said to still be a Sith cave. But in my head I like to think that the cultists who guard the cave are guarding its secrets. And its biggest secret is that this is not a Sith cave at all but the cultists' sanctum for Redeemed!Anakin. I may or may not explain all that in the fic proper, so I'm adding this note here just in case I don't. But if you want it in the actual fic let me know! Likewise please let me know if I'm leaving massive plot holes all over the place and I'll try to fill them in!


	9. The World Between Worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still inside the fortress, Finn tends to Ben.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

Finn’s always eyed Ben closely. At first, when Ben was still _ Kylo _ \- masked on Starkiller Base - Finn watched him walk entitled over floors Finn mopped. And then it was over battlefields, while Finn wondered why nobody - namely Kylo - ever issued him with consequences for choosing not to fight. Or why his number wasn’t passed on to someone else who could do that. Maybe Finn could ask him now though. Sometime. After he wakes up.

From above, Finn’s watched Ben too. During moments he probably shouldn’t have watched; familial disputes should be done in private, shouldn’t they? Patricide shouldn't be public? Finn supposes he wouldn’t really know though. He’s never really known his own people, to learn dynamics from. But he suspects they should be done in private. They shouldn’t be done in front of strangers, surely. Was Rey a stranger then? Was Chewie? Were he and Ben even strangers then? They had a history. Does history make for a family?

Finn’s eyes flit from the holocron between them to Ben’s hand, which is still inside Finn’s own. On the cool cut-stone floor of the cave, the hands and the wayfinder rest inside the small space Finn’s body makes across from where Ben still lies asleep. Finn didn’t move him much after he passed out. Just caught him on the way down and laid him on the floor and rolled him onto his side. To where he looked comfortable. Removed the thing still covering his face - balled it loosely - and tucked it beneath Ben’s head. Because that looked comfortable too, Finn thought.

He’s eyed Ben from up-close before as well. As they did what they had to do to Rey on Kef Bir, they were close. Long before that, way back, they were close when they fought in the middle of a very different forest to the one they're in the middle of now - not covered by ash but snow - and even the Whisper wasn’t that big; they were close when they were inside that also. 

But here, while Finn has watched Ben sleep, he’s close-up again because as time’s gone on Finn’s laid down too. Opposite. Strangely, the holocron kind of settled itself. Finn hasn’t touched it since Ben fell and now they're curled inwards their bodies surround it, almost protective. Finn’s knees tucked slightly higher than Ben’s, whose own are tucked just beneath. Finn still doesn’t fully understand why they need a glorified datacron. What it does. But he does understand somehow this thing is Rey. Represents Rey. So it does make sense, in a way, that he and Ben should be curled around it the way they are now.

Finn stares at the curious structure. Its ornate corners are lined with copper and symbols Finn can’t read - maybe Ben knows them - are intricately reproduced across its surface in symmetrical patterns. The light, emitting from inside the cube, is coloured violet. And that also reminds Finn of Rey. He doesn’t really know why. He’s never seen her wear a colour, only shades of grey. 

Finn shifts on the hard floor and into his back digs something. He releases Ben’s hand - it’s felt right to hold it this long, because of what happened outside, after Ben collapsed, the first time - and then Finn reaches around and his fingers find the contours of Rey’s old lightsaber. Finn rolls to his back, props his knees and brings the hilt inside his field of vision. His palms sneak around it. He contemplates igniting it. Just to see the blade again. He rolls to his other side. Toys with the button. And before too long he’s pressed it and the edges of the blue beam, that he remembers as smooth and true, flare as ragged as Ben's. Have they always?

“No.”

Finn drops the thing in shock. The light dies, the hilt scuttles. And like a bolt Finn's on his arse, sitting up. But Ben's voice carries on: “She repaired it. It’s weaker than it was. She's learned things.”

For several moments Finn blinks in shock at the darkened floor, his eyes still burned by the sudden bright light. Then he turns towards Ben, finds his eyes. They've opened. He's awake.

“So... the red one then... the double-hilt thing she had in the desert... she _made_ that? Like... herself?” Finn asks. 

“I don’t know what that was,” Ben says, his voice soft and still a little wan. “That one she had on Pasaana… and only if it was a real one... I don’t even know if she ever was real... if for all this time this has just been…”

Ben trails off.

“Here,” Finn says, reaching for the canteen the hooded figure he'd somehow negotiated entry here with gave to him after Ben passed out. “Drink. Make you feel better?”

He passes it to Ben, who half-sits and drains it.

“Where do we go to next?” Finn asks. It takes Ben a while to answer.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Where we go now... where we don't... doesn’t really mean a single thing... when she’s ready she’ll find us… now that we have this” - his eyes shift to the holocron - “I just hope it won’t be too long...”

“_When she’s ready _?” Finn repeats. “So… what, like... is this gonna be like… like a _seance_ or something?”

“A what?”

“_Seance_. You know... don't you?”

“No.”

“A seance is like... like calling out to the dead. But I didn't ever think they were _actually_ -”

“She’s not dead, Finn.”

“Ben-”

“She’s _ not_… she's _not dead_... Rey’s in the world between worlds.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	10. Follow It Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earlier...
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains Reylo NSFW / smut. Trigger warning for dub-con.

Ben’s sure his mouth is moving. It sure feels like he’s talking. This is sort of like in a dream. Where he’s running, trying his hardest but making no progress, no matter how fast he pumps his arms or tries to convince himself his feet are hitting the ground and propelling him forwards. It’s futile. Ben’s mute. And Finn is not even trying to hear a word he’s trying to say now anyway; standing over there, yards away, looking back indifferently at Ben. And then he just turns his back completely. Disappears. 

Ben glares at the lights again. Finn’s never flat-out ignored him before. How dare he do that now.

_ Just sleep, Ben… just let him heal you... like I did... I was good then. _

Ben turns a full circle and then the scene changes. The amber lights surrounding him are cooling to blue and Rey’s in sight now. Ben’s eyes well up at once. She’s close enough to hold. He reaches for her and she reaches back and Ben pulls her inside him. All the way inside him. It’s not just her body he fumbles for then cradles. It’s her whole soul too. 

_On some days… I was good on some days… please tell me that day was one of them, Ben._

He sobs into Rey’s hair. His needy hands grip her by everything of hers they can. Feeling her body, wanting to feel her as indecently as he’s always dreamed he could if only she had ever let him. She’s as solid as she always felt all the times he ever did touch her, sometimes allowed and sometimes not, outside the world between worlds. 

“On all of the days,” Ben whispers. “On every single day, Rey, you were so good.”

Every memory of her that he has ever made flashes before his eyes. Overpowering her in the forest. Carrying her to his ship. Watching her sleep. Breathing in her scent. Raking her heaving chest with his gaze. Glaring up at her from the catwalk. Clashing blades in the snow. And lying at her feet, wounded and disarmed. There are so many he has. And all of them seem to live here.

And every memory he’s never made swims before his eyes here too. Gripping her thighs as she did to his own in the throne room. Feeling her up there too. Taking her anyway. Even after she refused him. Convincing her to take him. Sliding his gloved hands beneath her garments while all the walls still burned. Squeezing at her bare, yielding flesh, and kissing it. Sucking at her skin. Leaving marks with his mouth, all the way from her neck to her belly, and back again. While she moaned his name and her hands fumbled for his weeping cock. 

Rey sees all that now. Ben knows she does. He can’t hide any of it here. And she can’t hide either.

_ It was a long time, Ben… and you’d made your choice… I needed to make mine… and I had more than one. _

All of Ben’s memories end with kissing Rey. She escapes him, but then somehow she comes back, and he kisses her. She defeats him, but after that, she doesn't run away; she comes back to him, and he kisses her then too. Ben licks Rey’s cunt and then he kisses her. Rey sucks his cock and then he kisses her. They fuck in the forest, and in the throne room, and in the miserable cot in his chambers and at the end of every single one of those times Ben kisses Rey.

_ Go to Ahch-To. _

“No.”

_ Ben… _

“I kriffing hate Ahch-To! We’re not kriffing going to Ahch-To… we’re going to the Chorlian sector… I’m gonna take Finn to Malachor... and there is nothing-”

_ Ben… are you really still insisting on being a stubborn dick princess even here? You can’t teach Finn on Malachor, you know it. And I know you know it. _

“Teach him?”

_Yes._

“I can’t teach anyone, you know that! I killed my master before I completed my last-”

_ So you need a new master? And then you could do it? Is that what you're trying to tell me? _

“Maybe… yes.”

_ Well… is that any way to ask for one? _

“Please.”

Then Ben hears the sound of the saber.

_ Follow it, Ben… follow it back. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	11. Snort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn and Ben leave Mustafar.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

Ben’s said only a few words since they boarded. Finn already knew he wasn’t exactly gabby but even for Ben - based on Finn’s not exactly extensive time with him - he has still said very few words. Only enough to effectively get them back to the Whisper and pilot them out of the Mustafarian atmosphere. 

Finn doubts it’s because he’s still tired; they lay for a long time on the floor of the cave. Ben slept for a long time there. Finn has a lot of questions about that because it had seemed to Finn at the time as though when they lay down together like that they were doing a lot more than just that. Resting. The hand-holding: that was definitely more than just resting. Something more was going on there.

They’ve been hurtling along at lightspeed for awhile now. Maybe Finn could hazard just one question to Ben about the resting; all the questions he asked afresh about location went unanswered, but maybe he’d reciprocate with this topic if Finn broached it.

“Something... wrong with me?” he asks.

For all the times Finn did ask all those unanswered questions Ben never deviated from whatever he was doing at the time that Finn was asking them. Never gave Finn any suggestion that he had heard any of his questions, and certainly never gave any indication that he was actively listening to them. But he gives both now.

Ben glances at Finn and grunts. Finn interprets that as 'huh?' And so Finn repeats, “Something wrong with me?”

“No," Ben is able to expand, with only an undertone of bristle. "Well actually… I dunno, is there? Do you think something’s wrong with you? I mean... you did use to be a stormtrooper after all… gotta be something wrong with those, right?”

Their eyes meet across the cockpit. Finn feels a little hurt. That wasn’t even a veiled dig, that was a fully-planned excavation. If this were earlier in their time together then maybe Finn would have blasted him for that. In fact, he’s sure he would have. Taught him yet another variation of Basic. But right now, given all that’s occurred since Pasaana, Finn doesn’t really have the energy left for any more fighting, and least of all any more fighting with Ben.

“Why do I feel like… why can I feel… there are things I can feel… I never could feel those before. And… and when you were… tired… I didn’t know why but I knew that I needed to help you… not just because Rey told me to trust you… or because of that one time on Jakku… but because… well because something inside me told me to help you… and told me how to help you… and I felt something… when we touched hands… and then inside… inside that cave… after you found that thing-”

“The holocron.”

“Yeah… the holocron… the same thing, Ben… I felt the same thing then… when you were lying there on the stone and I touched your hand again… I need to know what that was… what it is… that thing that passes between us and what I can feel sometimes… maybe even often… around you… and when I touch you.”

“You’re Force-sensitive, Finn.”

“What?”

“You’re like me. And you’re like Rey. And… well, there are... others.”

“General Organa?”

Ben looks highly uncomfortable at the suggestion of his mother again. Finn opens his mouth to say something about that - maybe do something about that, like apologise - but then he thinks better and bites his tongue instead. Hasn’t he just resolved not to fight anymore with Ben? And maybe everything he says, no matter what it is, would be taken now as acerbic, given their history. 

“Have you ever been to the Ahch-To system?" Ben asks, to Finn’s surprise.

“Oh… no… so that’s where we’re going is it, huh?”

“Heard of it?”

“Mm-hm.”

“And the island?”

“Yeah… wow… man, she must’ve twisted your arm hard…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?

“Nothing… sorry.”

Ben scowls. “Rey wants me to teach you.”

“Rey wants you to _ what _me?”

“_Teach you_.”

Finn exhales a disbelieving breath and runs his hands over the twists in his hair. And suddenly his own stench hits him and he wrinkles his nose, disgusted. 

“Least there’ll be water where we're going,” Finn says. “Can’t believe how bad I smell… Can’t believe how bad you smell, either...”

Finn shifts in his seat and gazes out his side viewport as the interceptor emerges from lightspeed and the blue and white sphere that is Ahch-To begins to slowly unfurl itself before them. And somewhere to the right of him, Finn thinks he hears Ben stifle a knowing snort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	12. Religion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As instructed by his new master Rey, on Ahch-To Ben prepares to teach Finn the ways of the Jedi.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Hunting animals and mentions of dubious uses of the Force.

The men have arrived at the island in its very early stages of morning. The planet’s suns hang low in the sky and their combined light filters weakly across the grey ocean; shadows still draw long across the scrubby coastland’s contours. Ben docks the interceptor on the southern side of the coast and the first thing Finn does is sprint fully-dressed from the edge of the flat stone beach straight into the sea. Ben watches him dunk his head beneath the surface several times then sprint just as quickly out again.

“Cold?” Ben asks.

“Arctic,” Finn shivers through chattering teeth, but on the way, he can’t help but clap Ben around the upper arm with a sopping wet hand, while looking him up and down and adding, “Least now I’m clean though. Can’t say the same about you yet.”

Because although Ben is just as filthy, he is also much more cautious and definitely not about to jump into a frigid ocean if he can help it. He almost can’t imagine what would be worse; an icy sea or the lava lakes of Mustafar. 

For all the time he ever spent searching for this molding old pile of rocks Ben has never actually been here. Only in dreams. Had he seen the way, when still with Rey, inside the world between worlds? Had she guided him as he piloted the Whisper through the largely uncharted systems of the western Outer Rim? He hadn’t entered coordinates back on the fringes of the irontree forest. Perhaps Rey had been with him. If the lore rang true, she was tethered now to his and Finn’s world by the holocron. 

Certainly, now that they are here, there are strong pulls Ben feels towards particular landmarks. Senses he has that he can’t ignore. One of them is towards a freshwater rill around the coast on the south-eastern side of the island. So that’s where he and Finn walk to first, the holocron safely tucked inside the breast pocket of Finn’s vest. Ben trusted him more than he trusted himself with something as precious as their only link to Rey. Not a thing he’s prepared to admit aloud but he hopes it’s another thing Finn can just sense.

Though Finn already dunked himself in the sea, both men spend time at the blowhole, soaking their clothes and trying not to look at each other without them on. Although they do look quite a lot at each other without them on; there are several niches inside the polished stone cave but mostly its walls are just smooth, gently sloping planes carved away slowly over time by the sea, so mostly there’s nowhere to hide. 

Neither man, though, has ever really been too concerned by nudity - stormtroopers basically live their whole lives on top of each other, no privacy - and Ben was never raised to really focus too much on his body, and least of all ever feel ashamed of it. His training as a Knight was very different but certainly, Jedi training didn’t set great store by physical vanity either. And for Finn, soldier culture actually encouraged objective physical comparison - healthy competition in every field was prized - so Finn can’t really help but note that Ben is very large when he does see him, as well as very pale, and Ben can’t help but note that Finn has many good reasons to be as comfortable as he seems to be in nothing more than his own brown skin.

In their surreptitious glances, both of the men notice the absence of scars on each others bodies. That’s surprising to Ben because he’s very aware that Finn was a soldier, and Ben knows that even sparring has real potential to scar, let alone genuine battle. But he also knows that he himself has scarred Finn in the past, and more than once. And Ben sure knows the damage sabers do; Ben doesn’t look in mirrors very often but sometimes he does catch his own reflection in durasteel. There are no marks on Finn’s back though. Ben’s often wondered about what it might look like, that mark up his back, that should be there. But the moment he wonders that is one of the moments Finn catches him looking, so Ben averts his eyes and the thought is gone almost as fast as he has it.

Once their garments are free of the crusted salt from Kef Bir and the layers of ash from Mustafar – and once they’ve done their best to beat out the stale, acrid smell of old sweat – the day has turned to noon on the island. The sun is high in the sky by the time they emerge from the cave, re-attired in wet clothes. The men sun themselves and the garments on the rocks over on the north-facing side of the little peninsula they just washed beneath, until everything is just dry enough, and their empty bellies have begun to growl hungrily.

“We could set traps,” Finn says, eyeing several porgs who keep wandering past near where they’ve been idling. “Or I bet they have a nest. We could have eggs for brunch.”

Ben frowns and begins to extend his right hand towards a particularly plump-looking bird, but Finn collects his wrist on the way, sensing what he’s about to do, and still feeling cautious about that - sensing - although perhaps less so since Ben articulated why Finn feels things like that.

“You are not doing that to an animal,” Finn says, remembering Rose’s compassion for everything, even food. She taught him lessons he’ll never forget. 

So after that Ben compromises, and sends each porg to sleep first. ‘Happier’ is too strong a term, but Finn is ‘somewhat less appalled’ by this as the comprised process for hunting birds, although he still has to close his eyes first when Ben does have to finally end each one’s life before he prepares it for roasting.

“Still think we could’ve just had the eggs,” Finn mumbles, a little later on, once Ben has used his saber to start a fire on a small pyre of brushy twigs and branches, rustled together in the same north-facing spot to cook their meal over, and the smell of charcoaling porg begins to waft from the flames. “You just be sure to stock up on the flatcakes next time we do epic-style, war-or-peace type missions together, okay? All this could’ve been avoided you know.”

In the afternoon the Force calls again to Ben and the men begin to trek across the coastal scrub to the foot of a steep climb of umpteen stone steps, which Finn doesn’t even shy away from grumbling about but Ben insists they ascend, so they do until they arrive at the dark mouth of the temple. Ben begins to finger away at the hole in his shirt again. Doing that is becoming less of a nervous habit by now and more of a reminder of who he has seemingly become, even in his own mind. 

Once, Ben would have preferred almost anything over the thought of being here, at a site he’s heard so many tales about, and all of which he’s tried to explain away as all of the reasons why he’s not a Jedi, and never will be. But here he stands in the dark, dank entranceway of the most hallowed site of Light in the galaxy, and certainly the most ancient. His hands are soft. His weapon placid. Ben comes here in peace. Searching for explanations he never thought he’d find in this old and very rusted religion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	13. Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben teaches Finn the ways of the Jedi.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

Ben can’t shake the feeling though that all those explanations aren’t here. He’s not given up on the fact it’s possible to bring Rey back, but nor has he relinquished his doubts this sodden planet is where they ought to be to do it; just as quickly as the world between worlds made its presence known to him, Ben is suddenly certain something undefined is missing. 

So this is just a means to an end then, being here. Maybe, therefore, it’s Finn who’s here to find explanations and Ben is that means. He only hopes it won’t take too long to get through all these apparent necessities, still amazed he cares to even worry they’re not vital. 

But he is concerned they’re running out of time. By now it’s possible that attacks by the Final Order have already started. He knows those will happen; before he turned he all but sanctioned them himself. He hasn’t felt the impact of free world obliterations just yet though; entire systems gone in the blaze of a beam. Millions of innocent voices crying out at once through the Force. Ben does know what that feels like. He's not forgotten Hosnian Prime.

The lingering doubts don’t settle with these rationalisations though: that Ben is largely here to just teach Finn in the ways of the Jedi and otherwise bide time until the real endgame begins. The doubts grow stronger in Ben as he and Finn navigate in silence through the Jedi temple to a high mouth in the rock, from where sunshine streams into the otherwise darkness. Maybe that’s telling.

The men follow the source of the natural daylight until they’ve left the cavern for an ominous precipice, central to which sits a flat-topped stone, positioned to overlook the island’s west-facing ocean. Ben fights the ghosts he feels out here. One in particular. Surprisingly though, after that initial acknowledgment - that yes he does feel ghosts here, and that yes they do still bother him - their voices leave him be for now but the experience affects him deeply. It shakes him up as much as the ocean stirs the life below the sea far beneath him, as its waves crash and foam against the rocks.

Memories flow like water through Ben, one from the next, reminding him of yet others. He’s been set a task - of beginning Finn’s training and fulfilling Rey’s instruction - yet there is another he knows he’s as good as agreed to do for Rey. Something, now he’s here, he can’t put off any longer; to do otherwise would be not only foolish but regressive. It’s a hard truth to admit, Ben knows, but maybe it’s time he did.

The inner conflict causes him to fiddle again with the hole in his shirt. Finn notices Ben’s behaviour.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Ben stares at the broad plinth, very aware of its purpose. He knows what he needs to do now. There are certain things a master does; a process to be followed. It’s very specific. It should start with the teaching of the Force itself. Explaining what it is. Teaching how to unlearn everything known so the Force can be felt inside, and inside everything. As something pure and primal. As true and worthy of trust.

Ben should have Finn sit down on the stone to meditate. And Ben should stand above him, and take him through some kind of initiation. Something to remind Finn that as an apprentice he knows nothing and that the Force knows everything, and Ben - as the master - therefore also knows everything. 

It would all equate to the establishment of some kind of power dynamic between them. An understanding that Ben is full of knowledge - the teacher - and Finn is just a vessel. His student. Empty, and waiting for Ben - the master - to start to fill him up. Reel off some of that vague, Jedi-Master kriff Ben remembers being taught years ago when he was the apprentice.

But Ben doesn’t do that. Instead, he just sits down on the rock himself and after a few minutes, realising that he is probably not likely now to do anything else but this, Finn sits down there with him.

“What do you want out of this?” Ben asks him, after a while.

“I don’t know,” Finn says. “Is that the right answer?”

Ben almost chuckles. “I think if that’s the answer you give, then yeah… that is the right answer… it’s honest.”

“Did somebody ask you that once?” Finn asks. “What you wanted? From training?”

“No,” Ben says.

“Well… if somebody did ask you that, Ben… what do you think you’d say?”

Ben shifts on the rock. Scoots himself backward and crosses his legs. Through the Force he feels Finn do the same, so now they sit back-to-back. Like equals.

“Before I was sent to my uncle,” Ben starts, feeling nervous, “I felt like I was alone.” 

He stops there. Waiting perhaps for Finn to say something about that. He knows Finn knew of his uncle. He doesn’t know if Finn knew what his uncle did. He doesn’t even know if he wants Finn to know that. But Finn doesn’t say anything. So Ben keeps going.

“There were voices that I heard… I didn't know if they were real or not… I still don’t know if they’re all real or not… all I ever wanted then though was for somebody to tell me that it was okay I heard those… that I was okay… instead… they just sent me away.”

“Sent you here?” Finn asks. “That why you hate it so much? Because they sent you here?”

“No,” Ben answers, resting his back against Finn’s. “Another temple… it’s gone now… Finn?”

“Mm?”

Since he sat down Ben’s fingers haven’t left the hole in his shirt. He removes them now though. Rests his palms face down on this thighs. He positions his right hand so that the first two digits extend in a V-shape, and the others curl in with his thumb.

“How many fingers am I holding out?”

“Huh?”

“This is training… okay? I just… I just can't really be bothered going down to the village and finding... some old droid… because usually one of us - probably you - would go and get a training droid to do this type of stuff with, but… I don’t know… the sun here is… kind of really nice, and… those stairs are kind of steep… you know what I mean?”

“Those stairs are steep, yeah… if you were gonna make me walk those stairs again? Just to get a training droid? Man, I don’t think I would actually do that...”

“Failing already, huh?”

Finn chuckles. “Yeah… guess so.”

“So... how many fingers?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, how the f-”

“Close your eyes,” Ben says. “Feel the Force inside you… flowing through the rock you sit on… feel it through the air against your skin… and the sun on your cheeks… feel it through the sounds of the ocean… and all the things that swim beneath its waves… feel the Force in me, Finn… because all of that is in you too… reach out with your feelings… and tell me how many-”

“Two,” Finn says. “Two fingers.”

The corners of Ben’s mouth start to twitch. “How many now?”

“It’s still two… hey… Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“You look nice when you do that… did you know that?”

Ben bites his lower lip but not even pain can contain what’s on his face now. Maybe it’s the answer to Finn’s question.

“Yeah,” Finn says, leaning back against Ben so that now the men are leaning on each other. “Really, really nice when you do that… you should do it more often... you know? Suits you… it really does, Ben… it really does suit you, that smile.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	14. Nowhere in Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn's training continues on Ahch-To.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

When the shadows lengthen Ben and Finn leave the temple for the remains of the Jedi village. There, caretakers have prepared vessels of fresh water, and portions of preserved fish, kelp wafers and dried fruits for the men, as well as clothing Ben refuses, still too attached to his punctured shirt and dark slacks. Although he does accept a byssus-wool poncho; the suns are still warm but the air on the island is quickly turning cold. 

Finn lingers over the supple-feeling, linen-coloured fabrics of the other garments too. In the end, he doesn’t take them, just a poncho, like Ben. And Ben feels a twinge of guilt about that but it’s mixed with satisfaction; in his gut - maybe also somewhere else - Ben is pleased that although they’ve started off with Jedi training, as Rey requested, Finn hasn’t yet chosen the Jedi robes.

Now basics are underway Ben insists they engage in some kind of follow-up exercise. He steers them towards weapons and Finn doesn’t object. So at first, the men spar with sabers on the saddle as a warm-up, until Ben suggests they do something more focused on the Force and Ben sends Finn down shipside, to fetch his cowl.

While Finn is off doing that Ben finds a pair of thala-siren bones. Femurs, he suspects. Finn wears Ben’s cowl like a blindfold then and Ben leads him through a trust training exercise that he remembers doing, years ago. At first, they just use the bones as foils; it just feels right to go gently.

“Have you always done it?” Ben asks mid-way through another practise sequence.

“Done what?”

“When you first handled this,” Ben begins, ceasing his maneuver and softly collecting Finn’s arm in one hand. Removing the bone with the other and replacing it with the Jedi saber as he discards his own bone too and re-arms with his own live weapon, lighting its blade and reminding Finn, “Remember to trust in the Force…”

Finn heeds the warning and ignites his blade. Unseen by Finn its blue beam extends in the planet’s failing light, casting cyan shadows across the brushy scrub and stone beneath his feet. Ben toys with his own blade and the hue of the combined beams casts the rocky earth purple. Thrums vibrate through the twilight air as Finn swings with caution, speculating the space.

Ben is impressed. Finn is more confident than he was even on Starkiller; he seems to have a flair for weaponry. When they resume the routine they practised with the bones, only once does Ben risk making near-contact with Finn’s body - his bicep - in a brief moment during which Finn loses focus and Ben feels him do it, and consequently slows the passage of his own blade to prevent injury. 

But in general, Finn is good and although Ben is intentionally careful, he doesn't really need to be. He could be more malicious, but he's not. This is not for him; it's for Finn and the Force. Although Finn is determined and at times borders on aggressive, and Ben likes that; it’s nice to feel that energy. Invigorating. And after so much sadness, for the first time in a long time - just like up on the flat-topped stone - Ben starts to feel almost pleasure.

“How did you know how to use it?” Ben eventually finishes asking the question he began earlier.

Finn pauses. The natural daylight is almost entirely gone now. The night is upon them and constellations neither man know are emerging in the clear sky above. There is still no moon but there’s enough light from the star canopy and sabers that Ben can still see Finn by. He watches him wrench the cloth mask from his eyes, his saber still lit. Finn holds the sword out front, the blade extending straight from his body; a position Ben taught him when they started. Not the two-fisted guard but his own perpendicular stance.

“It was just a feeling… I know I keep saying that... but I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Rey gave it to you?” Ben asks, adopting the same pose then slowly swinging as Finn parries. Like they’re in the middle of a dance.

“No,” Finn answers. “It was someone else… and I just felt what to do… like it told me, or… maybe it was more like I could see it… how it had been used… and all I did was to let it talk to me... if that makes any sense… it told me things and I let it… I let it tell me things, through my body… man, that sounds so weird-”

“No,” Ben murmurs, shifting his stance again and walking in towards Finn, who lets him close the distance between them. Even though their blades are still crossed and the ragged edges of each saber still spark in opposition. But the men’s hands stay gentle. “Sounds like a sense echo.”

“A what?”

“A sense echo,” Ben repeats, looking Finn in the eyes, which he’s near enough now to catch the reflections of their crossed blades in. The moment reminds him of eyes he’s seen before. Not nearly as scared though, these eyes he sees now. Rather they are fascinated. Curious. Ben diffuses his blade and Finn does the same, still in tune.

“So what is that exactly?” Finn asks. “A _ sense echo _?”

The men walk back to the spot they sat at earlier in the day, where they made the fire and cooked their brunch. This time they do cook eggs, which were also left out for them. Finn tends to those while Ben eats the dried fruits and across the flames occasionally he throws some to Finn when he asks for them. They share.

“Objects have histories,” Ben continues, once their bellies are sufficiently full and they are warm from the still glowing coals of the fire, and wondering if it’s time yet to move inside a hut, or stay out in the cool of the night. “Touch can be used to unlock histories… to learn things from the past… you are trained to know a saber but not know how to use it… a gift for psychometry perhaps explains what you just described… you told me on Pasaana you can’t fly either… have you ever actually tried to?”

“No,” Finn admits.

“None of them ever tried to show you how? You knew pilots… I know you knew pilots.”

Finn frowns. He’s not sure. Suddenly feeling immensely tired; he hasn’t slept properly since before all this when he was back with the Resistance on Ajan Kloss. 

He lays down on the earth by the fire. Ben’s voice begins to fade into the sounds of the sporadically popping embers. Those sounds, as well as the warmth from his poncho, lull him into a sleep. And the next thing Finn knows the fire is out, the island is silent. And Ben is nowhere in sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	15. Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **This work contains TROS spoilers**
> 
> TW: *Big angst* and MCD (references to Leia Organa’s death)

“B-Ben?”

He knows every place where her voice glitches. 

“It’s m-me...”

And he knows exactly how many beats of his heart it takes between the pauses in each of her phrases. 

“B-by the t-time you receive this I know you will have heard…” 

So Ben does consider turning it off right now. Reaching out from where he kneels on the stone floor of the hut in the darkness, in front of the holoprojector, and mashing the feed with his balled fist. 

“That’s w-why I’m-m sending it…“

Ben doesn’t do that though. 

“W-we wanted to wait for the right time to tell you…”

Ben lets the whole of his mother’s message play for the first time in seven whole years, that’s how long it’s been; he was only ever privy to it once. But he remembers all her words. And everything he felt when he overheard them.

“I don’t think we ever imagined that it would be now, or like this…" 

Ben’s eyes start to well.

“He was my birth father... but _ not _ my father, Ben, I _never_ thought of him that way… my father was a man named Bail Organa and I never lied to you about that... he was a great leader... Darth Vader was my birth father, Ben… he was your birth grandfather… I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you... we were only trying to protect you... your father and I and your uncle... all of us… we only ever tried to make you feel safe… and loved… B-Ben, we love you… I love you… p-please don’t b-believe what t-they’re saying… t-there was g-good in h-him… p-please... d-don’t… _ m-mir-ror-b-bright_… _ shin-nes... t-the _-”

But Ben's never heard any more. Past the start of her trying to sing him that song through her tears. It’s not because at that point he can’t make out the words through the sobbing, even though he does remember all the song's words too, or because the static of the holo grows so loud then. As though the recording was damaged, or the holocam was knocked. Maybe by her hands. 

It’s the voices in his head, starting again, and not just the ones he never knew back then. He does have faces for all of them now. But all of the faces look like Ben's. All of the voices are his own doubts.

Ben Solo sinks to the floor and from inside the holoprojector Leia Organa does too. Her sorrow fades out and then all there is inside the hut is the sound of static and Ben still weeping on the stones. In front of a thin vertical beam of cold clinical light. That no longer contains the only thing he has left of his mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, I promise Finn will be there soon to help Ben ;_;
> 
> ((I have honestly been wanting to write this for so long somewhere and I know it's sad but I'm so glad I finally did it))
> 
> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	16. Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earlier...
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

Finn stops before he reaches the entrance to the hut. An attempt to close its mangled door’s been made, but it's not shut all the way, and a slit of flickering light spills across the stone path outside. And faint though it is through the gap, Finn can just make out a voice he knows. It doesn’t belong to Ben.

“-birth father… but not my father-”

When he can no longer stop the strong urge he feels to peer through the crack and to witness this with his own eyes, Finn stares open-mouthed at the scene inside the small room, now the truth of it confronts him; out on the flat of the island, he thought he’d been imagining this.

“-your birth grandfather… I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you-”

Even then though - and although confused - he’d still felt calm as he followed the feelings that pulled him here to the village. 

“-p-please don’t b-believe what t-they’re saying-”

Now panic rises in Finn, as he watches Ben knelt on the floor, reacting to the words. And fear. Finn doesn’t understand where these feelings stem from; the things he’s overhearing are facts. Finn already knows them. The galaxy already knows them. At least the ones about the General; he’s less sure of how widely known the whole truth is about Ben and his grandfather. About Kylo Ren and Darth Vader.

Finn sways on his feet as inside the hut Ben crumples forwards, head sunk inside fraught hands. Tears well in Finn’s eyes too, as the full extent of Ben’s sorrow hits him like a trandoshan. And he's sure he can hear the beginnings of a song at the end of the message, as it peters out, and then Finn is reaching a hand out for the mangled door, to steady himself with. The door groans, and shifts, and Finn stumbles through as Ben whips around, spotting him.

“What are you doing here?” Ben spits from the floor. 

His eyes are red from crying and his face is pouchy with pent up emotion. He’s attempting to wipe his nose and his cheeks with the back of his sleeve, trying to find the cuff of his torn shirt, Finn thinks. But his hair and the poncho keep getting in the way, and he keeps trying to flick his hair out of his eyes, and flick free the hem of his shirt cuff. To clean up his face with. Which is flaming with the shame of being seen now, unable to hide here from Finn. 

Finn recognises that in Ben too: shame. And it’s too much then. He can’t just stand by here anymore, and watch this display, and not act.

“Here,” Finn offers, stepping in towards Ben and kneeling down on the floor with him. Holding back his hair with one hand and pulling back the billowed garments with the other so that Ben can at least have a chance to start to wipe his face and regain some dignity. 

On the floor of the hut, they stay like that for a few minutes; Ben cleaning himself up - recovering - and Finn just watching on. Not really sure where to look.

“Did you follow me?” Ben eventually asks, his voice still bitter, but no longer outright spiteful.

Finn’s hands still hold his hair back. He softens his fingers and considers removing them. Ben doesn’t seem to mind this though. He hasn’t moved away or recoiled from Finn's touch. Or from the touch of his other hand, which still cups the other man’s elbow, where it settled when Ben began cleaning up his face.

Finn opens his mouth to answer but his vision seems to swim then. Their surroundings blur. Ben is still with him, Finn still holds him, but they’re no longer in the stone hut on the island. Finn knows because the air smells different. It’s not sulfurous any longer but earthy. The smell in his nostrils is a clean one like rain. And the hut is a room that is wooden, not stone, and furnished with woven mats. 

But as quickly as he’s able to name the ways in which this room differs the image blurs again, and he and Ben are back on the barren floor of the stone hut on the island. 

“Finn?” Ben's eyes blink by the light of the holoprojector’s steady, analytic beam. “Did you see something then?”

It’s Finn’s turn to blink. A hand closes over the one he still has cupped to Ben’s elbow. The image before his eyes swims again and they are back inside the wooden room. But only for a moment, until the folded hand is gone. And then Ben is staring at him again. This time with eyes that beg for him to fill in details Finn doubts Ben can speak. So he tries.

“You knew this was here,” Finn whispers slowly, with little idea where the words he speaks are coming from, they just seem to be there all of a sudden. Wetting his tongue and willing him to spill them. “Somehow… he recovered it for you… brought it here, and it drew you… we don’t need to be here… you and I don't need to be here but this drew you… and Rey knew… she knew it… she wanted you to be here to see this again.”

Ben exhales and all of a sudden his forehead is against Finn’s shoulder, Finn’s hand still tangled in his hair. Finn takes his weight and just holds him like that as flashes of a landscape Finn’s never seen signal another vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	17. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **This work contains TROS spoilers**
> 
> TW: Panic attack, flashback

An ocean. Beneath a barren landscape. So dark it should be a sky. But it’s void of all light. And all points of reference. Unplottable. Infinite. Nauseating. 

Finn tips his head back to the wall of the hut and wishes that it would stop. But the scene just changes again. And here comes that feeling of dread again too. The fear and the panic that he’s used to at night, but never while awake like this. Only in nightmares. And during the terrible hours after.

A smothering, pastel-pink sky. Receding through the portal of a ship. And awful wailing sounds in his ears that seem to come from deep inside his own chest. But it’s not his own voice Finn hears. These are not the measured tones of the man he is now but the high-pitched screams of a boy. His own howls, choked and full of terror. Finn couldn’t breathe then. He can’t breathe now. 

Dizzy and nauseated again. The skin of his face begins to numb and there’s a vice inside his chest, there with the cries. Their friend is the fist that grips him from the inside. 

The roof of the hut whirls behind his eyelids. The room tips and he tries to steady. Back on the ocean. Desperate for mooring. Air is all his hands find. Empty, terrifying space. And something grabbing out at him. Taking him away. And his wails don’t stop as the hands hold him tighter.

Smooth and long strands, like hair, across his face. Inside his mouth. 

And a smell in his nose like outer space.

Flatcakes. Seaspray. Fire. Fish. Dried fruits. Metal. Grass. Something burnt. Faintly scorched.

The scorched edges of a hole in a shirt that’s faded from black to dirty grey. He can see it now. Through the hair and the hands. It’s not a vision. It's not a flashback.

They are gentle and slightly calloused hands. He can feel their wear through the tingling. When the hands brush his cheeks and his lips as Ben holds Finn to the big broad berth of his chest. 

Finn is rocked back and forth to the sounds of his words, about a moon. They have a kind of tune. They are a sort of song. They fill his ears. Very near.

And the images fade, and the cries do too, when Ben and the moon-song send him to a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	18. Control All That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben gets expositional on the way to the Chorlian sector.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: MCD (background mentions of both Rey's and Leia's deaths in this chapter)

He checks the sensors. Makes sure the shields are still up. It’s a long haul spinward to Malachor from Ahch-To. Ben did deliberate a coreward course; it’s a much shorter passage straight through the middle, and less risky, but only by illogic. 

He knows the First Order has more surveillance in the Outer and Mid Rim territories than in the Core or Colonies. Even amidst the new threat they are still foolishly searching for the Resistance, and they think they’re still out there. Exactly what High Command knows of the Final Order is also questionable. If he’s honest the whole Final Order itself is questionable and for that reason, Ben didn’t share anything he learned on Exegol about the true scale of its fleet, including the offer of military support.

Because nothing in that broadcast aligned then with what he sensed in the Force. It was almost laughable and Ben's sure - if he laughed - he would've been laughing at that. Plus nothing put to him by whatever was alleging to be Palpatine did either, and it still doesn’t. Even though they should have stopped, the voices inside Ben’s head have not even lessened since he went to the Hask desert, and accepted the apparent Emperor’s offer of increased power in exchange for the eventual delivery of his claimed granddaughter. On the inside, Ben is laughing at that one too.

And then there is the matter of the voices emerging in Finn. Ben’s not laughing at those. The visions he’s having. If the new threat is only about reuniting lineages, why is the Force affecting Finn? Choosing this time to call him? If this conflict is truly only dyadic and contained to bloodline sensitives, why isn’t it also contained to the usual rule of two? Ben and Finn seem to be connected as he’s always been with Rey. That’s not a dyad. All the messages seem to contradict.

But Force aside, a political war still wages and it is still most likely that the First Order is continuing to operate as though they are simply chasing Rebel scum and their allies. Do they even know about Ben’s desertion yet? Have they guessed about it by now? Wondered where he is? Do they know about his mother? Has there been time for that news to spread? Probably not.

Rey had called it his _defection_, in that very brief conversation they had in his chambers; the first time they Force-connected since a year ago on Crait, and the last time he saw her alive before she turned to Darkness. _ His Rey_. But Ben knows that’s not what it is: defection. Another binary he’s prepared to scoff at. Ben has made this choice himself, to be free of both sides. He’s never going back, to either of them. His mother’s sacrifices were her own business. Let the past die.

It’s all no doubt prepping for a very awkward conversation with Rey, when he and Finn do eventually get her back and they can have a talk like that, or if she visits him again in his sleep. Ben’s turned, but not in the direction he knows she wants and suspects Finn wants too, although Ben's less sure about him.

Ben still trusts that he and Finn will do that, once they finally arrive in the Chorlian sector: return her. He doesn’t trust political ideologists but he does still trust in the Force. And he still believes he needs Rey. He’s never not believed that. He's not exactly sure why. But maybe the reason is recovering over there in the co-pilot’s seat. Turned away from him, facing out towards open space. Ben had carried him to that spot carefully. From the village to the ship.

Ben cares about Finn. He would not say that out loud. He would not dare think it while Finn was awake, just in case. But in the privacy of his own head, maybe more, that thought begins to throw out the very tiniest of lights. His eyes flick again across the interceptor’s cockpit. Finn remains in the same deep Force-sleep Ben induced in him when they were still on the island; his arms loosely slung around his chest, as though hugging himself. 

Finn stirs a little. Shifts the position of his head on the padding so that now he’s facing in towards Ben, eyes still closed and the holocron still tucked safely beneath his poncho, inside the pocket of his vest. Ben watches his hands. Remembers the ways they grabbed for the empty air in the hut, and the ways his fingers clung to Ben’s shirt. And wonders if he should have by now taught Finn some ways to control all that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	19. Lies Beneath It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Malachor, Ben teaches Finn how to meditate.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

The interceptor is silent and still**. **The deep ease with which Finn breathes when he’s dreamless - the rhythms - must have lulled Ben into a microsleep. He opens his eyes by a crack. No diodes flash from the dash. The Whisper seems to have powered down, now they’ve arrived on the visually desolate surface of the planet. 

Something warm brushes the back of Ben’s hand. It’s a gentle touch but the unexpected contact startles him, and he opens his eyes all the way to find Finn looking over from co-pilot. His dark eyes look rested. There are fewer lines across the soft skin beneath them, and the hoods are less puffy.

“How long have we been here?” Finn asks.

Ben frowns. He is wondering that himself. He remembers landing the ship. Looking at Finn, still asleep, and wondering if he should rouse him. So he must have drifted off as he wondered. But now they are both awake. And Finn’s hand is still against the back of his own, stroking something. 

“What’s this?” Finn adds.

Ben looks down. Finn’s fingers have found his wrist, and the bracelet he made from the necklace Rey gave him during the conversation they had in his chambers, given so he could locate her later on Pasaana.

“Oh… beads that are made from husk, I think,” Ben says in a quiet voice. He wonders if Finn recognises these. He doesn't seem to. Ben lets the Force guide him. “Meditation beads.”

“Are they what they sound like they’re for?”

“Yes,” Ben answers, letting the Force guide him again, even though that’s not technically true. He’s no idea if these beads would be used like that, but they could be. So it’s technically not a lie either. 

Finn is gazing at them and one of his fingers is spinning a single bead against Ben’s wrist. “I have these dreams sometimes,” he whispers. "But I've been having them all the time... seeing them all the time... and other things too..."

“I know,” Ben says. 

He slips the bracelet off his own wrist and cautiously takes Finn’s hand. He slides the bracelet over Finn’s fingers and down to the shallow of his wrist. Finn’s forearm is solid and strong but there is still a shallow there, just behind the joint of his thumb.

“The beads will keep you here,” Ben says. “If you get lost… lose focus… use them to bring yourself back… let them ground you… close your eyes...”

Ben can feel Finn’s caution. “It’s alright,” he whispers.

Finn closes his eyes and Ben closes his fingers gently around the bracelet he now wears.

“Breathe,” Ben instructs, his voice still quiet as he watches Finn carefully.

“Ten breaths... focus only on your own breath, nothing else... and if you feel yourself slipping” - Ben presses Finn’s fingers more firmly to the beads of the bracelet - “use them to return your feelings… and then they and you will find the Force… don’t let it find you… you will meet it… halfway...”

Ben takes his hands away and watches Finn begin on his own, chest rising and falling but only once. And then his eyes open and he starts to shake his head, “I can’t do it. I can still see-”

“It’s not about doing it,” Ben says. “And it’s not about not doing it either... what matters is that you try… you just try… and you keep on doing that... we can stay here for as long as it takes…”

And it does take a little while. Visions keep finding Finn, just like they did in the hut on the island. But eventually, he meditates for the space of ten and then twelve breaths.

And after that, they gather all their things. The extra clothes for masking their faces in the hot, moistureless air. The supplies of preserved food and fresh water Ben packed up from the Jedi village. And of course the holocron. Which Finn ensures is still tucked inside his breast pocket. And then they start to make their way from the ship toward the rubble of the Malachor Sith temple, and what Ben hopes still lies beneath it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	20. Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still on the surface of Malachor...
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: MCD (mentions)
> 
> Just a reminder that canon is interpreted very very laterally in this fic ;)
> 
> Also sorry for so long between updates, things are rocky right? <3

Convorees circle in the bright white sky. Beneath them Ben and Finn crouch in the middle of yet another stretch of wastescape. They, like the birds, sense what’s hidden nearby, after miles of trekking - often in circles - to find this elusive location. 

Ben puts one hand to the ground where they’ve stopped. The Force undulates the ash-tilled earth like a drop into liquid, and through the grit and topsoil sift glassy black forms. Some of them are larger than Ben is. Some of them are smaller than Finn’s littlest fingernail. 

“This way,” Ben says, through the settling dust once the rippling stops.

They enter the excavation. Sometimes their boots scuff against loose stones. Sometimes they sink ankle-deep in silt. Sometimes a convor swoops when a pebble slips down a small incline, the sound disturbing a rodent and the flash of tail betraying its location. 

Often Ben slows, thinking he’s finally found the exact thing they’re looking for here. And always Finn feels the holocron pulse over his heart, hoping it’s true. He’s sick of being on his feet.

“Different here?” Ben asks, pausing at a spot for longer than usual, and looking up at Finn with wide eyes. He senses another change in the Force and he wonders if Finn does too.

Finn exhales slowly. He’s hot and kind of over it. He remembers the bracelet Ben gave him on board the Whisper. The thought of it reminds him to stay calm and just breathe. His eyes narrow but don’t close, even though that would relieve the glare. But as tempting as it sounds, to rest again, his lids won't shut; his attention wants to settle halfway along an edge of rubble several hundred meters ahead. The spot calls him. 

Finn lowers his chin towards it and Ben looks too. In silent agreement, they continue on together that way and the closer Ben gets the more he’s convinced they’ve at last found what’s left of the obelisk. As they approach, with just a murmur of movement from his fingers, Ben uses the Force again to clear away the loose scree and expose more of the broken pillar. 

The remnant rests on one of its longest edges, black and glassy, like the other strange forms. It extends for several meters along the ground. At its widest girth broken clean away from a base that’s still half-buried, and with much of its height still likewise hidden beneath rocks and clumps of ash. But the part of it they need now is revealed. A small recess. Around the same size and shape as the thing Finn’s carrying. 

“Pass it?”

Finn reaches beneath his poncho - although it's hot, he and Ben both still wear these, pulled up over their noses as masks in the dusty, particle-laden air - and slides his hand inside the pocket of his vest to pull out the holocron. His fingers slip it to Ben who kneels and places the small cube inside the hollow.

Nothing happens until the ordinarily faint glow of it brightens, and then both men begin to feel a deep rhythmic thrum just behind their sternums as its violet light intensifies. The phenomenon makes no audible sound, but the earth beneath their boots responds to its vibrations, moving again and starting to sift even more ground from around the men’s feet. Until so much is loose they each begin to sink. 

“Kriff,” Ben mutters as he scrambles to retain footholds on the rapidly disappearing surface of Malachor, scrabbling backward as a sinkhole opens where the solid land was moments ago. 

And the column falls, inside the cavity, the holocron along with it.

“Now what?” Finn grumbles, when the bedlam starts to ease, although the earth is still moving and he’s still half-scampering backward too, and coughing in the wake’s dust.

“Well, we gotta go down there,” Ben answers, tearing down the fabric of his poncho, which has come half-loose anyway from his nose and mouth, in the struggle to stay on his feet. “This is what’s left of the entrance.”

Finn pulls down his own poncho too and crinkles his nose. “You first.”

Ben narrows his eyes. “You’re smaller... less likely to set off another avalanche… _ you _first.”

“That wasn’t an _ avalanche_… are you serious? That was a... sucking… something… collapse… that’s what that was... and you know what else? That is the lamest excuse that I have ever heard from anyone for the fact that they just don’t wanna go first. Because _I’m_ _ smaller _? Come on...”

Ben glares at him. “There is all kinds of loose kriff around here, okay? And I am bigger than you and more likely to set it all off. And so that means that you need-”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“That,” Finn says. “That _ kriff _thing all the time… why do you keep on all the time with the... manners?"

"What's wrong with manners?"

"Have you always done that? Or only since... well... you know..."

Ben scowls at Finn for nearly a whole galactic standard minute. Then he just huffs and turns back to the sinkhole and assesses its closest edge. And then he starts to walk toward it tentatively. Ben's ignorance of him doesn’t seem to diffuse the temper Finn's maintaining though. 

“Why don’t you,” Finn continues, “Just say something like _ shit_. Or _ f-_”

Ben’s heard Finn cuss before but only in the heat of arguments. Not even when they battled for real, on Starkiller. And not when Rey died. Not when they were mourning. Just when the two of them are alone together. And things get a little bit tense. Emotional. It’s been a long journey so far, Ben supposes, and he knows Finn is tired. And they’ve grown closer over the last perhaps day or so that it’s been since they lost Rey. So maybe that has something to do with this too, he thinks, as Finn continues on. They’re getting more familiar with each other. More comfortable. But still…

“...so just say that you think that all of this loose stuff is-”

“Well, actually, what I think is that it's just crass,” Ben says, beginning to lose his own cool now, too. “Okay? It’s crass to swear, apart from polite swears. It’s not necessary. Alright? Me calling this” - he motions around with his hands - “either _ kriff _ or _ shit _or whatever the fuck else you want me to call it-”

“There you go!” Finn says, walking toward him and clapping him around the upper arm like he did when they arrived on Ahch-To and smiling at Ben. And Ben notices. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it? Hm? Feels good, too, to be bad for a minute, right? In the middle of this whole… situation?”

He gives Ben a wink and then he just walks right by him and starts to disappear down the side of the sinkhole closest to them, to Ben’s continued shock, because he hasn’t been brave enough yet to walk so close to that edge, and discover that it's not a sinkhole at all but in fact the mouth of a cavern. One to which a series of declining stairs beginning just inside the part of the opening closest to the men leads to.

“Next time though,” Finn calls out from over his shoulder, “Just admit you’re nervous and that you want me to go first. I won’t mind, Ben.”

Ben blinks. Chews on the inside of his lower lip. But it’s without another word - crass or not - that he follows Finn now, straight into the darkness underground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	21. Guess I'll Do It Then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Finn negotiate at the entrance to the World Between Worlds.
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: MCD (mentions)

Ben doesn’t make it very far inside the cavern before his shins collide with something low and he loses balance in the darkness and stumbles groundward, elbows crumpling. Falling until he face-plants. Teeth connecting with the inside of his lip.

“Don’t you watch where you’re going?” Finn digs, his fist now full of the back of Ben’s poncho.

“It’s pitch dark,” he grumbles, wishing he'd sensed more carefully first or maybe just ignited his saber to light his way in.

Ben can taste blood in his mouth, and more dust, but the surface beneath smells clean at least, and a little sweet. And when he stretches out his hands to feel its texture, the carbonite frozen below the gritty residue is smooth; one seamless plane, like glass. His fingers search the surface until they find a hard edge. Not sharp. Finely crafted. Definitely not the side of a haphazard thing like a sinkhole. 

“No, it isn’t,” Finn rebuffs, still with a sturdy hold on Ben’s poncho, but he’s more casual about the fistful he has on him now, sensing the danger around Ben pass. “Look closer.”

Ben tries to stare ahead into the air beyond the edge. The void, beyond time and space. He blinks, eyes still adjusting to the change in light. He could be staring at nothing at all, but he knows better. 

Gradually, straight lines of faint blue emerge in the darkness around him, marking the prudent and angular outlines leading towards and bordering around the rhombic entrance to the portal itself. Here are the edges of everything. A low doorway to the netherworld. 

He lifts himself up on his hands and knees. Finn is beside him, on hands and knees too. Ben shifts his weight back to his haunches. Finn does the same and then Ben reaches out and places one hand on the husk bead bracelet around Finn's wrist. Their eyes meet.

“You need to stay here in case something happens,” Ben says.

“In case?” Finn repeats, eyebrows rising. “Ah, no... you are not going in there alone and I am not staying out here by myself and just waiting _ in case _of anything, Ben.”

“I won’t be alone,” Ben says, his hand still on Finn’s wrist and his fingers toying with the beads on the bracelet, spinning one inside the shallow of Finn's wrist. “And you won’t be out here just waiting… if something happens and the holo-”

“Well that’s a very nice story,” Finn interrupts, nodding and smiling politely. 

And then his smile evaporates.

“I’ve done just as much as you have through all this,” he levels. “Going to get that thing” - he nods behind them, towards the surface, and in the direction of the holocron still glowing violet from inside the fallen obelisk - “and even before that when we were still with Rey on Kef Bir... and _Pasaana_... I did all that _with _you... I wasn’t just _watching_… I want her back as much as you and if something happens in there... well there is no way I'm just gonna stay out here like some passive and unaffected person… who the outcome doesn’t matter to… and watch it happen all over again, no way, Ben. No way.”

“Watch _what _ happen over again?” Ben murmurs, brow creasing, trying to sense. “What are you talking about?”

Finn swallows. “I already told you... _ no_,” he repeats, feeling discomfort at the edge of his mind. But before he can try to push it away the feeling is gone. Ben's hand is still on his wrist though.

“Somebody has to stay here, Finn. If the holocron dislodges-”

“_You_ do it then,” Finn says. "You stay out here and _you_ watch it then. If you think that's gonna be so-” 

“I can’t,” Ben admits.

“Why not?”

Ben hesitates for a moment. Then he mumbles, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, what? Are you kidding? You're doing this again _now _?" Finn pulls his wrist free, feeling the simmering temper he seems to keep on getting from somewhere in these moments start to bubble up inside himself again. "Holy shit… I'll tell you what, Ben. Now is the time to try me… _explain it to me_… don't just give me more of this _nobody understands me_ crap... it's not _fair_… and it's also not _helping_... and you know what else? I am not just some footsoldier anymore who doesn’t know anything about anything... alright? Who you can just lord it over all the time and expect-”

“Anything could happen to me,” Ben says, feeling his eyes start to grow hot and hating himself for that. He doesn’t want to explain this, but he spits out a perfunctory version of an explanation anyway because he feels like he owes one. And also because he thinks of this as true. “No one would give a shit, Finn, alright? No one would care... no one would care if something happened to me, and... also... I know you’re not just some footsoldier... okay? You've... I've always known that.”

“That's not true,” Finn says quietly. "There are people who would care."

“My mother is gone,” Ben murmurs, as slowly more of the words he needs arrive on his tongue at last. “My family… who covered for me… you were right when you said that no one would believe I’ve turned… your Resistance would have me charged with war crimes… they’d execute me... or petition for it… the only person who mightn’t is in there” - he tilts his head towards the doorway - “and maybe… _maybe _you too, but… if you’re in there too… if something happens and I’m left out here, without you too, as well as without Rey, and… well, what’s the fucking point of that, huh? None of us survive? What’s the fucking point of this then? If _all_ of us are gone? Who's gonna-“

“Tell me why I need to stay here.”

“Because I need _help_… okay? That's why... I can’t be in there _and _pull her out… it’s not a physical realm... it doesn’t work as things work here… someone needs to be inside but someone else needs to be here too… otherwise, we’ll both stay lost… I’m too big to do this kind of thing, it needs to be someone with a low center of-”

“How do you get out then?”

"What?"

"_You_... how do you get out?"

“The same way.”

“So we pull you out too?”

“Just you,” Ben says quietly. “Not Rey too… she’ll… well, she won’t be exactly the same as before… this is not bringing her back from that fate, Finn… but it is bringing her home.”

Tears begin to fall from Ben’s eyes. Finn feels the corners of his own eyes prickle. Then one of his hands finds Ben’s face and his thumb wipes away a small spot of blood that’s collected in the corner of his mouth as they’ve talked, from when he tripped.

The thumb lingers there at Ben's lip, as Finn's eyes watch him blink back more tears and Finn remembers to just breathe, and feel the Force flowing through himself. Husk beads visible in his peripheral vision.

And Ben feels the same thing Finn does. As his face moves closer to Finn's hand. Cupped around his jaw like a cradle now. Pain in his mouth disappearing.

“Okay,” Finn murmurs. “Guess I’ll do it then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


	22. Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile...
> 
> **This work contains TROS spoilers**

Were there ever any empresses in any of those tales Rose told? There were emperors. What’s the difference? Rey used to ask Rose about a lot of things but she was fairly sure she never asked her that; if there was really any difference between empresses and emperors. Or at least a difference that mattered. 

Queens and kings in Rose’s stories never seemed more or less powerful than each other but sometimes Rey got the impression Rose was doing that on purpose because she thought it should be that way. Were Rey to comb through all the memories she ever made of Rose, for long enough, until she found the right one - or didn’t find it - she could probably find out and be sure if she ever asked Rose that or not. 

Although it did seem to be that the way to find a memory was not always to go off and scavenge for it. Sometimes a memory just came back and found you. If you waited long enough.

“Did you make that saber?”

Rey staggers and falls to her knees. She’d flail her hands out in front if she could, to stop herself falling, but those are full of things. She drops them in shock.

“I did make _ a _ saber, yes...” 

Her ears ring from the sounds the things make as they clatter to the floor. The things seem familiar but the floor does not. Cold hard glassy and black and marked by a series of straight blue lines that lead in every direction.

“And before that, I repaired one...” 

These voices are familiar too. 

“But you didn’t bring that one here with you... only the one you carry... that was very foolish of you... I think you might regret that soon.”

Bile rises in the back of Rey’s throat as her lungs pummel her organs and her nose starts to stream. Her tongue aches from all these words she’s been saying in a voice no longer inside her own head. It's as real now as she is. As real now as Ben is. 

“You bled a crystal?” he asks.

“No,” she answers, licking around her lips, wetting her mouth. “That was just a glamour.” 

“Shadow magick?” he breathes.

Rey spits on the frozen carbonite. “Yes.” She runs her tongue around her teeth. 

“He showed that to you?” Ben's voice is nervous.

It causes the skin of Rey's face to stretch. “_He _?”

“Palpatine.”

Before now, her body was only ever an idea. Listening, speaking, smiling. And memories of using her body had only ever been those too. Hadn’t they? Finding his weaknesses. Forcing his surrenders. Accepting who he was. Who they both were. They were all ideas and memories and feelings. Cross-legged on the floor of the nicest part of the jungle. Rey’s head in her lap. Rose stroking her hair. Sleepy eyes closing.

“Oh, dear Ben… I thought you knew that too…” 

Before now consequences of ephemeral things were only ever more of those kinds of things, one leading to another like storm clouds in a jungle sky. Not at all like her body with its boundaries. More like this floor. 

“But you’re such a good boy now... I’m not surprised you don’t...” 

As she stares at it the lines begin to disappear. The flat plane she still kneels on undulates. Rey stands and the spaces around her shift as in her nose she can smell the salty sulfur sea. 

“Good boys like you, Ben, still believe in all the stories.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and vents are welcome. No ship hate please.


End file.
